Background
Alicia O'Shea Petersen was born in Tasmania.
Alicia O'Shea Petersen was born in Tasmania.
She became interested in women's and labor rights as a result of her own work in sweatshops. She was the first woman in Tasmania to stand as a political candidate, contesting the federal seat of Denison in 1913. In 1922, when women were first eligible to stand for the Tasmanian House of Assembly, she was a political candidate in Denison.